


waiting, watching

by LookingForShadows



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Angst, Episode: s02e02 In the Shadow of Two Gunmen: Part 2, Episode: s05e22 Memorial Day, F/M, Inner Dialogue, Pining, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2016-08-29
Packaged: 2018-08-11 17:48:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7902004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LookingForShadows/pseuds/LookingForShadows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They have to be okay. They have to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	waiting, watching

_You watch me bleed until I can't breathe  
I'm shaking, falling onto my knees_

Donna doesn’t leave the hospital for three days.

When she does, it’s because she’s pushed out. Mostly by Mrs. Lyman—“Ruth, dear,” she’s insisted on being called, but Donna’s not sure if that’s going to happen anytime soon—but by Sam, and Mrs. Bartlet, and even Leo. Josh is the one who finally tells her to go, though, with a few short words and long looks that tell her she needs to leave.

Hospitals are draining. Donna had known this. She remembers waiting for her ex to get off shifts and being exhausted just by the energy—or lack thereof—floating around the hospital room. But hospitals didn’t seem this bad before.

Josh was shot.

Josh was shot.

Josh was _shot_.

It’s not that she thinks he's invincible. You can’t like Josh until you recognize that he is inherently vulnerable and constantly worries about the wounds he leaves behind. At least, that’s what Donna thinks, and she’s spent enough time with him to know.

She’s supposed to be sleeping. She knows this. And getting some decent food into her, and taking a shower and putting on clothes and maybe makeup because it’s been three days since she looked even halfway decent, but who can think of that when all her thoughts have been a running monologue of _Josh Josh Josh Josh Iloveyou Josh Josh Josh_?

Her phone rings.

“Hi,” says the voice at the end when she picks up. “I’m sorry to call, I know you were probably sleeping—”

“I wasn’t,” she says automatically. She tries to place the voice. “Sam?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I just wanted to let you know that they’re moving Josh from the ICU to a more permanent recovery room. I guess they were supposed to do that a while ago or something, but there were, uh. Security protocols.”

Threats, he means. They had to secure the new room. Donna is not a fool. But she also knows that it is better for Sam if he thinks she doesn’t know.

She breathes out. He’s fine. He’s fine. He’s not been hurt yet; he’s fine. Or he will be, anyway. “Okay, Sam.”

“I just—I didn’t want you coming back to the hospital and finding his room empty.”

Oh. Donna hadn’t thought of that. And she thinks about coming into the room to find it empty, no Josh, not at all— “Okay. Thanks, Sam.”

“Yeah, of course. Get some sleep. Ruth says she doesn’t want to see you here for at least another eight hours.”

That’s not going to happen, but she doesn’t feel like arguing right now. “Okay, Sam. Thanks.”

“Yeah.” And he hangs up. Like Josh does. No goodbyes. Easier to avoid saying goodbye; just better to hang up and assume that the conversation will continue, that there will be nothing to interrupt it—

She can’t continue with this train of thought. She’s going to go mad if she does.

Josh is safe. Josh is okay, or he will be soon enough.

She still has someone to love.

 

* * *

 

If Josh were religious, he would pray.

He’s not religious, though, not at all. Certainly not like Toby, who was probably born with a yarmulke plastered to his balding head. He doesn’t know whether he believes in God, although he’s prayed to the deity of that name no less than twenty times in the past five minutes, saying that he’ll give absolutely everything if he can either wake up to find this was all a bad nightmare and Donna is fine, or if she can just pull through this.

He wants the former, but he’ll settle for the latter. He’ll have to settle for the latter. She has to be all right. She _has_ to be. She can’t—

It doesn’t bear thinking about.

“Hey there—oh, hi, sir,” says an older nurse who had clearly expected to find Donna’s room empty of visitors. “I need to check Ms. Moss’s vitals. Could you...?”

Josh is reluctant to leave his chair. In fact, he hadn’t planned on it. Not until she wakes up, at least. He thought he’d super glue himself to the chair if that’s what it took, until she wakes up.

She is going to wake up.

“Do you need me to leave?” he asks, voice a little lower than normal.

The nurse looks torn. “Well, I can do it with you here. But it would—be easier, yes. If you left. Just for a minute, if that’s okay.”

He doesn’t want to, but he’ll leave, so he nods and gives Donna’s hand a gentle squeeze before letting it slip out of his grasp onto the bed. He’s been holding her hand for an hour, since she came back to the room. He doesn’t want to let go. Doesn’t want her hand to go cold.

She held his hand when he has gone through fires before. He’ll be damned if he doesn’t hold hers now.

He steps out into the hall, barely remembering the two things clutched in his hand: two sheets of paper with one of Donna’s emails on it, and the last of the roses.

The roses got dropped. And there was blood on them. And he’s thinking that maybe he shouldn’t give this last crushed one to her, that the universe or whoever might be out there is trying to give him a sign: _d_ _on’t tell her, don’t tell her, don’t tell her._

_Just let her survive. That’s all she needs._

And the email, which Josh has read four times now. He can’t believe he ever thought that her writing was drivel. She writes in long streams of consciousness, taking in everything that surrounds her with infinite compassion.

She has to be all right. That kindness can’t go out of his life.

The nurse comes out of his room, and without another thought, Josh tosses the last of the roses in the trash can and shoves the rumpled papers in his back pocket before reentering Donna’s room.

She is going to be fine. She has to be. She _has_ to be.

**Author's Note:**

> Song lyrics at the beginning from "Stitches" by Shawn Mendes; fic inspired by listening to said song on the radio about a thousand times, a little red wine, and a lot of sadness.


End file.
